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head free But he held her face firloves, she noticed with horror, just as thieves do

Then his hands slid down her tre ar horribly deliberate about

his movements Celia, even at that moment, even with him, had the

sensation which had possessed her in the salon It was the

personal equation on which she was used to rely But neither Adele

nor this--this STRANGER was considering her as even a huame, and they used her, careless of her

terror, her beauty, her pain Then he freed fro cord which ran beneath the curtain to Adele Rossignol's foot

Celia's first thought was one of relief He would jerk the cord

unwittingly They would come into the recess and see hily He had jerked the

cord, but he had jerked it deliberately He was already winding it

up in a coil as it slid noiselessly across the polished floor

beneath the curtains towards hinol All that woainst

trickery had been a mere blind, under cover of which she had been

able to pack the girl away securely without arousing her

suspicions Helene Vauquier was in the plot, too The scarf at

Celia's mouth was proof of that As if to add proof to proof, she

heard Adele Rossignol speak in answer to the signal